Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I, Hopeful

Obama has officially taken the oath of office. His hand was placed on the same bible that Lincoln was sworn.

On Saturday, Obama gave a speech about hope for the country from the very same spot that Martin Luther King had his dream.

146 years after the Emancipation Proclamation

45 years after the Civil Rights Act

41 years after a single bullet ended the life of a hero

Barack Hussein Obama is now the 44th President of the United States of America

Regardless of politics, regardless of the man, this moment, this precious day should rock you. It actually happenned. I live in a country where a black man can become president. A country that enslaved, beat, and separated because of color is now lead by a man that is afforded opportunities his father would not have received.

I would like to believe that this brings in a fundamental change in America. I want to believe it. This election cycle shows that America as a unity can turn our greatest shame into one of our greatest accomplishments.

Then again, I live in California, a state that just banned gay marriage.

Mostly I'm near to tears in one thought that keeps going through my head. My children, whenever we have them, we grow up in a world where they actually can believe that you can acheive. My kids will never know fully what an accomplishment Obama has attained. My generation will be one of the last to know that a black in the office was a struggle.

That is the hope that I have dreamt about for 13 years. That was the year I went the Ebenezzar Church in Atlanta, GA. That was the year I saw the tomb of Martin Luther King, Jr. That was the year that I finally understood that while America isn't perfect, some Americans are. That is my goal as an American, as a father in the future.